Design of Wideband Linearly Polarized 3-Bit Transmit-Array Antenna With Polarization Rotation Unit Cell

The millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band is expected to be the optimal solution for future wireless communication systems as it provides a wide bandwidth, which enhancing data transmission rate. Therefore, high-directive antennas, principal elements for mm-wave wireless communications, are used at the mm-wave band as they can overcome the negative effect of high path losses. A transmit-array antenna (TA) operates at the mm-wave band (around 28 GHz) with high aperture efficiency, high gain, wide bandwidth, and low-profile TA surface has been designed. Basically, the aperture efficiency of the TA depends on the unit cell (UC) characteristics, and feed antenna radiation pattern. Therefore, the UC elements designed based on capacitive differential feeding and true time delay techniques, as a result the designed UC has a wide bandwidth with a stable broadside radiation pattern, high cross-polarization discrimination and a full phase range (0-360°) and a maximum element loss of 0.5 dB. Moreover, the designed UC rotates the polarization of linearly polarized electromagnetic (EM) wave to its orthogonal direction with high efficiency, a polarization conversion ratio higher than 0.9 is achieved within the operating frequency band. The used techniques to design the proposed UC have a significant effect on TA antenna performance, in terms of gain and bandwidth. The TA antenna surface and the feeding antenna have been designed and fabricated. The maximum gain is 31.15 dBi. The 1 dB gain bandwidth is 12.7% while the 3 dB gain bandwidth is 21% around 28 GHz. The aperture efficiency is better than 50% and the cross-polarization level is less than -37 dB, on the frequency range from 25 to 31.5 GHz.